


my soul may set in darkness

by iodhadh



Series: out of the dust; into the dark [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Battle of Ostagar, Brosca Origin, Canon-Typical Violence, Caste, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The surface world wasn't something Drust had given much thought to: after all, he'd never imagined he'd get the chance to be anything but a casteless thug. He certainly never thought he'd find himself craving a human's touch—or that anyone but his sister would ever look at him like he really meant something.</p><p>The journey to Ostagar will change everything for him, and what happens there will change everything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my soul may set in darkness

**Author's Note:**

> "I should write a fic about what happens on the road to Ostagar," ey said. "It won't take me long," ey said. "It'll probably top out at around three thousand words." Thirteen thousand additional words of the most homosexual story I've ever written later, here we are. Drust has a lot of feelings, and I have a lot of feelings about Drust.
> 
> You may note that there are minor references herein to Rica's appearance which contradict her looks in canon; this is because in my personal continuity I've headcanoned her to have a similar appearance to her brother, which means she has dark skin, dark hair, and a broad, aquiline nose.
> 
> As usual the dialogue for in-game scenes is largely and shamelessly lifted from the game itself. The title of this one is from Sarah Williams' poem [The Old Astronomer](http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/49415133926/) (which is a beautiful poem and I highly recommend you read it, even aside from the reasons I felt it was pertinent as a source for this fic's title). The relevant couplet runs, "Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;/I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

The first time Drust saw Duncan he was in the hallways of the Proving ground with Leske, looking for Mainar’s rooms and trying to stay inconspicuous.

He caught sight of the Grey Warden as they crossed the entrance hall, and slowed in fascination. The man wasn’t hard to spot: though he wasn’t that large for a human, at least as far as Drust could tell, he nevertheless stood head and shoulders above everyone around him. But even had he been of average size, Drust thought he would still have picked him out in a crowd—the Warden had a striking face and a dignified bearing, and barely seemed uncomfortable at being so ill-sized to his surroundings. You could practically see the nobility radiating off of him—not the nobility of birth that was flaunted by the upper castes and coveted by casteless and lower castes alike, but a truer nobility of spirit.

Drust would have liked to say that he went to talk to him because he could tell that Duncan was going to be important to his future, or to offer up his services as a Grey Warden himself, or even just to bask in the glow of integrity he was giving off, but the truth was far more prosaic.

When Leske realized that his companion was no longer at his side, he turned back, looking inquiringly in the direction of Drust’s gaze. “Oh, that’s the Grey Warden,” he said, breaking out into a grin. He winked. “Like the look of him, huh? I dare you to go talk to him.”

Drust just raised his eyebrows, looking between Leske and the Warden. “Well, if you think we have time…,” he said, trailing off with a smirk.

Leske laughed. “Go see what he thinks of dusters.”

So Drust went. He couldn’t let a challenge like that go unanswered—and besides, Leske had guessed correctly. The Warden was extremely attractive.

He had no idea what to say when he stopped in front of him; he hadn’t planned that far. And so he just looked up into the man’s eyes, almost as dark as his own, and felt his heart stutter once in surprise when the Warden met his gaze without hesitation—and then a second time when he smiled and opened his mouth to speak.

“Stone-met, and blessings on your house,” he said.

Drust nearly fell over in shock.

The Warden’s brow creased. “That was the proper greeting from an outsider last time I visited Orzammar. Has it changed? Or is there a reason you’re looking at me so strangely?”

Drust shook himself and recovered his tongue, flashing the Warden a brief grin. “In my part of Orzammar we usually just go with ‘hello’,” he said.

“We do the same in my part of Ferelden,” the Warden said, sounding relieved. “Hello, then. My name is Duncan. I’d say ‘of the Grey Wardens,’ but I suspect you already know that. Pleased to meet you.”

“Drust Brosca. Of nobody in particular,” Drust said, trying to keep his tone light.

Duncan paused over it regardless. “Ah… of course,” he said softly. “That’s what the face-brand means, then. I remember that now.”

Drust resisted the urge to cover his cheek. He had liked being looked at as an equal—better not to draw any more attention to the mark. He tried a smile. “I don’t suppose you could forget again?”

The Warden chuckled. “Fair enough. Well met, my friend.”

That was more like it. Now he just had to think of something to say—something that wasn’t about how his partner had dared him to come over because Drust thought Duncan was good looking. What sort of things would a common dwarf have to say to a Grey Warden?

He settled for the obvious. “Is it true you’re here looking for recruits?”

Duncan nodded. “The Wardens are always looking for those who have the courage to spend their lives in battle against the darkspawn,” he said. “It’s rare we find those with both the skill and the will. The best Wardens are ruthless to their enemies, compassionate to their friends, and inspiring to their troops.”

 _Well, that rules out most of the upper castes,_ Drust thought. Ancestors, if he and Leske won a place for Everd in the Grey Wardens by rigging his match against Mainar, he didn’t know what he’d do. He bit back the absurd urge to laugh.

Perhaps Duncan saw the skepticism in his face, because he smiled ruefully and nodded. “It’s a lot to look for, I know, but I hope to find it here.” Then he straightened up, having caught sight of someone behind Drust who was doubtlessly gesturing for him to take his place in the audience. “I must go. I hope you also may find what you are looking for.”

Drust watched Duncan walk away, then turned to rejoin Leske. What he was looking for? What could he have possibly been looking for? As if a casteless thug would ever have a chance to look for anything but a peaceful grave.

“So? What did he say?” Leske said as they made their way into the warriors’ hallway.

“He’s madly in love and wants to desert the Grey Wardens to live in Dust Town with me,” Drust said. Leske guffawed.

“All right, salroka, just don’t get so carried away in marital bliss that you forget about the job,” he said, clapping Drust on the shoulder. Drust snorted, but he did set aside his thoughts. Leske was right—there was time enough to contemplate the way Duncan had spoken to him when they weren’t working.

Of course, then they found Everd passed out on the floor and everything went sideways. Try as he might later, Drust could only remember the Proving in flashes, but there was one moment he would never forget: when he threw the helmet down with his head held high and for just an instant the arena was silent before the audience exploded into a furious clamour. Duncan started arguing with the Proving Master as the guards converged on him and chained his hands, and over the noise of the crowd he could hear the Warden proclaiming him the champion.

He looked back, just once, but Duncan had already stalked off.

Drust was certain that he’d never see the Warden again when he woke up in the Carta dungeons—and not just because he wasn’t sure they’d make it out of Beraht’s clutches alive. He shut off all thoughts of rescue as he and Leske battled through the halls, and by the time they emerged into the light of Orzammar’s streets he was more worn than triumphant, and exhausted at the thought of all the running they still had to do if they wanted to escape safely. It was almost a relief to be captured again: at least they hadn’t given him a chance to fight it.

“If this is your idea of saving us from Beraht, you’re too late,” he joked wearily, dropping his stolen swords and letting the guards bind his wrists.

“You do not speak until the shapers have judged you!” the Proving Master snarled, practically spitting with fury.

Then suddenly Duncan was there, that palpable nobility shining off his face, with Rica hurrying along behind him. Drust was barely even able to muster up surprise. Of course the Warden was there; he had already stuck his neck out on Drust’s behalf once today. What was once more?

“One moment, my friend,” he said—and did he call everyone that, Drust wondered half-hysterically— “Did you not suggest that this Beraht might have arranged their convenient escape?”

The Proving Master growled, then took a deep breath. “Regardless,” he said, “the penalty for impersonating a higher caste is death.”

“If Beraht is as influential as you say, perhaps he also masterminded Everd’s impersonation,” Duncan said reasonably. Drust bit back a snort. _You’ve got that right_.

Not that he wanted to make his association with the Carta public knowledge. “Last I saw Beraht,” he said instead, “he was suffering from a bad case of dead. I doubt he has any influence anymore.”

Drust heard Rica gasp. The Proving Master blinked in surprise. “He’s dead?” he said. He shook his head. “Beraht had many enemies,” he said dubiously, “but also powerful allies. They—”

“Beraht would have butchered us if he hadn’t killed him first,” Leske snapped, jerking his chin in Drust’s direction and yanking himself from his captors’ grip. Drust tipped his head in acknowledgement, levelling a hard stare in the Proving Master’s direction.

“One less Carta boss to deal with. You ought to be thanking me.”

Fortunately, Duncan spoke before the Proving Master had the chance to respond to that. “You have once again demonstrated your courage,” he said. His eyes were warm, and did not move from Drust’s face. “We Grey Wardens travel far and wide in search of those with the potential to join our ranks. It seems that I have found one such candidate.”

The world spun around Drust and resettled on its axis. It took him three tries to make his voice work. “Are you asking me to become a Grey Warden?” he said. He heard himself as if from a great distance.

“Let me make my offer formal,” Duncan said with a smile. “I, Duncan of the Grey Wardens, extend the invitation for you to join our order.”

Drust’s head was reeling. Dimly he remembered what Duncan had said the Wardens looked for in their recruits. Ruthlessness to his enemies he had in spades, if the state he’d left Beraht’s body in was any indication, and he was certainly compassionate towards those he loved. But inspiring? Did he have that in him? How could he ever know? There was no place in a duster’s life to inspire anyone.

The Proving Master interrupted his thoughts. “This man is wanted for treason!” he cried. “You can’t do this!”

“I can and I am,” Duncan said, turning a hard gaze on him. “The Rite of Conscription is a time-honoured tradition going back to the very founding of our order. If you’re looking to break faith with the Grey Wardens—”

Drust saw the exact moment the Proving Master changed his mind, and had to fight not to laugh out loud. “No, no,” he said hurriedly. “Take him, if it means that much to you. He’s just a duster, after all.”

The muscles hardened around Duncan’s eyes—Drust could have loved him for that, in that moment—but all he said was, “I’m glad you’ve reconsidered.” He turned back to Drust. “It would mean travelling to the surface lands and thus leaving your people, but it does offer you the chance to strike a blow against the darkspawn and the Blight.”

Was that even a real question? Darkspawn be damned—even if he didn’t know how to inspire anyone, he wouldn’t have another chance like this. He would miss Rica and Leske, but Orzammar had never done anything for him. And when it was a choice between the Wardens and execution… well. He smiled weakly. “Anything to get out of these chains,” he said. He looked over at Rica; she had her hands pressed over her mouth, looking at once furiously proud and desperately worried. “Just… let me talk to my sister first.”

“Please, take whatever time you need.”

He did. Duncan withdrew to give him a moment’s privacy, and as soon as he was unbound Rica careened into his arms, crying with relief. Drust was hard-pressed to hold back tears himself. He cupped her cheeks between his hands, letting wisps of her dark hair feather through his fingertips. “You’ll be all right without me?”

Rica’s nod was emphatic despite her tears. “This has been a lucky day for both of us. I spent the afternoon with my new patron. If everything works out… maybe I can even greet you as an equal if you return.”

Drust hugged her fiercely. “You will _always_ be my equal. You understand me? No matter what happens. You make sure that man treats you right.”

“I think he will,” she said, biting her lip against a smile. “He calls me his midnight rose—isn’t that sweet? He has a voice like a poet. He’s already promised to move mother and me into better lodgings, where he can find me quickly when he wants me.”

“As long as you’re happy,” Drust said, kissing her forehead. She beamed.

“I am. Truly. I could never make a life fighting darkspawn, but if I can bear a son who makes his house proud, that’s all I can ask.” She squeezed his hands. “Now go be a hero, little brother. You’ve always had it in you.”

He smiled at her, kissed her hands, and turned to look at Leske. His partner had been released from his own bindings and had retrieved his weapons, and now stood grinning at him with his hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword. “From Dust Town to the Grey Wardens. If you don’t watch out, salroka, you’ll end up a Paragon, and then I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Drust laughed. “That’ll be the day. Take care, Leske.”

“Ah, don’t you worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Leske said, clapping him on the arm. “Now get out of here, before the Warden realizes what a big mistake he’s made.”

Drust pulled him into a rough hug, then released him, stepping back—away from his sister and his closest friend, the only life he’d ever known. Rica smiled at him encouragingly; Leske waved him off; Duncan moved to meet him. From the other side of the street, the Proving Master folded his arms and glared.

“Are you ready?” the Warden said.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“There’s no one else you need to say goodbye to?”

Drust thought of his mother, then thought better of it. There had been no love lost between them for the last twenty years; he doubted she’d notice his absence for weeks, and even then, it would only be to remark on how he was no longer wasting her space. Enough that he had provided for her for most of his life; Rica could do that now. He looked up at the Warden and shook his head.

Duncan smiled. “Then, Drust Brosca, I hereby recruit you before these witnesses into the Grey Wardens. Know that you are most welcome.”

And that was it. Collecting Drust’s personal possessions took virtually no time at all, and Duncan kept his own gear in readiness to leave at a moment’s notice. They reunited in the main square of Dust Town, and before Drust’s mind had had a chance to catch up they were on their way—for all he knew, never to return.

He paused at the gates, turning back to look over his neighbourhood one last time. Then he shifted his eyes up, to the heights of the glittering Diamond Quarter, and his jaw tightened. “One day no one will ever have to live with nothing again,” he said quietly.

“That would be a beautiful day,” Duncan said, his voice just as soft. He reached out, squeezed Drust’s shoulder, smiled faintly when he caught his eye. “That reminds me—before we leave, I’d like to make you this gift, since you have so few possessions of your own.” He reached into his pack, withdrawing an old-fashioned but finely wrought mace. “It belonged to a Grey Warden named Foral Aeducan—I believe he was a relative of your king.” He passed it to Drust. “Now it is yours.”

Drust took it, testing the weight. It was solid, reassuringly so, and swung well in his grip. “Thank you,” he said. “I will do my best to honour its legacy.”

Duncan dropped his hand from his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Now, come—we have a long way to travel.”

It was nearly an hour’s walk through the tunnels from the entrance of Orzammar to the doors to the outside world. The journey passed largely in silence: Drust had a lot to reflect on, and Duncan, mercifully, left him to his thoughts. They crossed a great bridge and zigzagged up a series of staircases carved into the cliff face, then entered a long tunnel that gently sloped upwards to the mountainside. It was only when they spotted the torchlight of the guards at the terminus that Drust came to an abrupt halt, staring along the length of the hall at the portal that would mark his final, irreconcilable separation from his old life.

Duncan stopped and waited with him, and Drust faced down the end of his world in silence.

Long moments passed before he finally spoke. “What’s it like?” he said, his voice husky—from emotion or disuse, he didn’t know.

“Bright,” Duncan said. He had obviously dealt with this question before. “Bright and very open. People compare the heavens to a bowl above the earth, but the reality is that it’s endless. Some dwarves say when they first come up to the surface that they fear that they will fall off the world and float up into the sky.”

Drust snorted faintly. “Has that ever happened?” he said, his eyes still fixed on the door.

“I can say with some confidence that no, it has not.”

“Didn’t think so. The Stone wouldn’t lose her hold, even on what stands above her.” He shifted his feet; they were planted solidly. “What else?”

“The temperature changes,” Duncan said, “between day and night, and by the day, and with the seasons. It will be warm during the days, but colder at night, even to the point of discomfort—especially in the mountains. And the air is rarely still—you don’t realize, having been accustomed to Orzammar your entire life, but it’s rather stale in here. Outside it moves and carries scents away, bringing others from far afield. It doesn’t taste like it’s been circulating the same rooms for centuries. Ventilation tunnels can only do so much.”

His voice was wry, and Drust turned to look at him. “You don’t like being underground, do you?”

Duncan smiled faintly. “No, my friend, I do not. Most people raised aboveground feel the same—and even you may come to agree one day. But for now the surface will be overwhelming. Your eyes will hurt and you might get dizzy, but we can stop when you need to, until you’ve adjusted.”

Drust looked back down the hallway to the torchlight illuminating the exit. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He stood by in silence while Duncan spoke quietly with the guards, trying to keep his nerve from breaking. Despite his resolve and the Warden’s warnings, he had no idea what to expect once he stepped through that door. Would he be able to handle it, or would the sight of the sky send him running for cover? How would he deal with the changes in temperature? He had never even spent the day in a smithy. And what of rain, that mysterious water that fell out of the air—and which no one had yet been able to explain satisfactorily? All he had been able to picture was a waterfall, and he knew that couldn’t be right: if the entire sky poured down like that the surface would have drowned centuries ago.

Duncan rejoined him. “They’re opening the doors,” he said.

There was a rattle of bolts and the creak of hinges, and then the great metal doors opened with a crack and a sharp slice of light flooded in. Drust shut his eyes against it, then opened them again, staring at the growing wedge of brilliance. Duncan was right: it was the brightest light he’d ever seen—and the bluest. He looked down at the yellow light of the torches, now visible only in dim pools in the corners of the tunnel. Suddenly he realized that he’d never before known clear light—that everything he had ever seen in his life had been washed with the warm tones of the fires. The world had a good deal more colour than he’d ever imagined.

He stepped out onto the surface and immediately had to close his eyes again. He felt faint. “Oh,” he said.

“Are you alright?” said Duncan, somewhere off to his left.

“It’s more—I mean—I couldn’t picture it properly,” Drust said. He swallowed hard and cracked one eye open, and had to put out a hand to steady himself on the wall. Slowly he let his other eye come open as well, and stared down the pass ahead of them all the way to the horizon. “Ancestors, how do people live like this?”

“We’re accustomed to it,” Duncan said. “I said the same about the caves the first time I came to Orzammar.”

Drust turned to look at him—the Warden’s person made a welcome relief from the great expanse of blue above him—and found Duncan smiling almost fondly. Unbidden, he felt himself flushing—partly out of embarrassment, but mostly at Duncan’s expression as he watched Drust’s own face. Never had Drust been gladder of his dark complexion than in that moment, as his gaze traced a path from Duncan’s eyes to the curve of his full lips and down the corded muscle of his neck.

He cleared his throat. “Then I suppose I’ll grow accustomed to it too,” he said. “We should go, shouldn’t we?”

“Yes, we should,” Duncan said. He looked up, squinting at the source of the sky’s light—the sun, Drust remembered, recalling tales he’d heard of surface life. “We should still have a few hours of daylight before dusk.”

“Lead the way, then.”

The doors swung shut behind them as they started down the steps, and Drust fought the urge to flinch. A small collection of merchants and traders had set up shop around the entrance, but Duncan shook his head in response to their calls, and he and Drust passed through without stopping. Soon they were on the road, winding their way down the side of the mountain.

That was easier for Drust—on the path at least there were cliff faces and boulders to either side of them, blocking out his view of the horizon. Duncan set a moderate pace and Drust kept up with him easily, even during his momentary spells of lightheadedness brought on by the open air. He kept his eyes on the ground, quietly taking in the astonishing variety of plants that surrounded the road, and occasionally stole glances up at the sky above. By the time Duncan declared it time to stop he was even starting to get used to it—or, at least, was no longer surprised every time he caught sight of the emptiness above him.

For the next little while they busied themselves with setting up camp in a sheltered hollow just off the road. Drust cleared a space for a fire pit and laid it with kindling; Duncan unloaded cooking supplies and rations from his pack and set to doing something mysterious with a length of canvas and some poles. Drust watched him for a few moments, idly trying to puzzle out what he was up to, then decided to make himself useful and do some cooking instead. A cursory look through the Warden’s supplies furnished him with a package of smoked fish, small sacks of barley and root vegetables, and—miraculously—a little bag of spices. That was enough for a perfectly serviceable stew. Leaving Duncan to his unfathomable pursuits, Drust picked up the cooking pot and went in search of water.

He had made his way back, lit the fire, and set the water to boil by the time the Warden finished and sat down next to him. “There’s only one tent, so I’m afraid we’ll have to share,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Tent?” Drust looked over his shoulder at the site of Duncan’s former efforts; instead of the tangle of canvas and poles, there was now a low structure sitting there, staked into the earth and seemingly sprung up from nothing. He stared at it. “That’s for sleeping in?”

Duncan gave him an astonished look, then broke into a laugh. “Would you believe it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t need tents in the thaigs?” he said. “Yes, it’s for sleeping in. It will keep the worst of the chill off us, and shelter us from the weather if it turns bad. It’ll be a bit cramped, but…”

Drust shrugged. “You saw what Dust Town is like. I’m used to sharing space.”

The Warden nodded, looking contemplative, but said nothing.

Drust gave the tent a last long look and turned back to the fire, adding a handful of barley to the bubbling pot. Duncan retrieved a bowl and pulled a small knife from his belt, slicing carrots into the dish in medallions. Drust selected a turnip and diced it in as well, then picked up the bag of spices to decide how best to season their dinner. The variety of choices was overwhelming: he had seen or smelled most of them in the markets before, but had never been able to afford more than the barest essentials. He picked his way through the dizzying array of sachets and had just settled on thyme, savoury, and mace when he caught movement in the corner of his eye. He looked up. For a moment he couldn’t decide what he was seeing, and then he swore and dropped the bag.

“What is that?” he said, staring up into the fading sky.

“Hm?” Duncan looked up, following the direction of Drust’s gaze. “Oh. That’s a cloud bank.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s supposed to be there.”

Drust’s eyes widened and he continued to stare as it rolled along the horizon, scuttling in the breeze that was picking up. “It’s _in_ the sky!”

“The sky is full of changeable things, my friend,” Duncan said. He handed Drust the bowl on his lap—now full of carrot slices and Drust’s own chopped turnip—and got up to move his packs into the tent. “It looks like it might rain tonight.”

That was a new one. “Clouds are rain?”

“The source of rain. Clouds are water vapour—like the steam from your pot,” he added, nodding at the fire pit. “If there gets to be too much to stay afloat, it falls. When the clouds are thick and grey like those—that’s how you can tell.”

Drust stirred uneasily. “You mean we’ll be out here when it rains?”

Duncan finished stowing the packs and straightened up, scrutinizing the clouds. “I shouldn’t think we need to worry about it for another hour or so. Finish your cooking. We’ll have plenty of time to eat before we need to take shelter.”

If Drust hurried through the rest of the food preparations, he could hardly be blamed. The turnips were slightly undercooked, but the fish was delightfully flaky, and the dish was flavourful and rich enough to amaze its creator. Duncan ate with every sign of enjoyment, and left Drust to tidy the campsite and smother the fire while he washed the dishes in the river. By the time he returned, night had fallen in earnest, the sky was dark with cloud cover, and Drust was going out of his mind with trepidation.

The Warden smiled. “Time to take shelter, I think,” he suggested.

Drust didn’t need convincing. He located the flap at the door to the tent and ducked inside, where he found two bedrolls laid out on either side of the floor and their gear neatly stacked next to the entrance. Duncan followed him, setting the pot down with the rest of his bags and pausing to fasten the buttons that kept the opening closed. Drust watched him, and couldn’t help but glance anxiously at the ceiling.

But the Warden did not seem concerned. He sat down on one of the bedrolls with a contented sigh and stripped off his gauntlets. He gestured for Drust to join him. “Relax, my friend,” he said. “I trust you don’t intend to sleep in your armour.”

Drust flushed again and shook his head, sitting down heavily across from Duncan and trying to keep from dwelling on how much more accessible the Warden’s body suddenly was. Perhaps unfortunately, there was a considerably more pressing topic occupying his mind, and he found his eyes continuously drawn upwards as he shucked his leather armour.

“What’s it like?” he said abruptly.

“The rain?” Duncan said. He had removed his vambraces and pauldrons and was now unbuckling his breastplate, and he still looked completely relaxed. “I suppose it’s hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it. It doesn’t fall in a stream, if that’s what you’re wondering—it’s a shower of droplets. You’ll be able to tell when it starts. It has a distinctive sound.”

For some reason Drust hadn’t expected that. “Will it keep us awake?”

“Actually, many people find the noise soothing,” Duncan said. He shrugged out of his breastplate, heaving a relieved sigh, and flopped back onto his blankets. “Including me. I expect I’ll have no trouble sleeping—though I suppose you might.” He tilted his head, listening, and smiled. “Here it comes.”

Drust became aware of a distant rustling sound. There was a brief patter across the roof of their tent and he jumped, jerking his head up towards the noise, and then the storm struck in earnest. He was conscious of Duncan’s amusement as he crawled towards the door, but undeterred—he had to see. Carefully he slipped one of the buttons from its fastening and parted the canvas, peering out at his first glimpse of the rain.

He had lost count of the number of times he had been stunned into silence so far that day.

It was incredible. It fell in droplets, just as Duncan had said—it reminded him of a cave he had seen once with a ceiling made up entirely of dripping stalactites, but amplified by the thousands. Already water was soaking the earth, collecting in rivulets and filling tiny puddles. The entire world smelled wet and fresh and clean.

Tentatively he slid his hand through the opening, extending his arm until it left the protection of the tent. Rain bounced off his fingers in soft drops, coating his palm with tiny rivulets of its own. He left it there for several minutes, fascinated, then withdrew, buttoning up the gap and crawling back to his bedroll. He sat, thoughtfully rubbing the water between his fingers, and listened to the sound of the rain.

Duncan was watching him with that same almost-fond expression, and Drust’s heart gave an exhilarated flutter. “Well?” said the Warden. “Did it live up to your expectations?”

Drust was silent for a long moment. “The world is so much larger than I ever knew,” he said at last.

Duncan chuckled softly. “Get some rest, my friend,” he advised. “There will be more to see tomorrow.”

And so he did. That night, Drust fell asleep to the drumming of the rain and the gentle breathing of another man beside him—one sound foreign, the other as familiar as his own heartbeat in his chest.

The rain had abated by the time they woke, though the sky was still the cool grey of blanketing clouds. Drust had slept heavily the night before and resisted waking up, but did so grudgingly at Duncan’s insistence; he was only just coming to realize how much had happened to him on the previous day. Still half drowsing, he sat by the fire to supervise their breakfast while the Warden dismantled the tent. As he stirred the porridge he absently added nutmeg, a pinch of cinnamon, and a few cloves from Duncan’s supplies: damned if he was going to eat plain food ever again as long as there were other options.

If the Warden was surprised at Drust’s additions to his breakfast, he made no comment, and within ten minutes of finishing their meal they were on the road again. With movement came an increase in wakefulness, and soon Drust began to take note of the terrain. They were well and truly on their way down the slope of the mountains now, and if he’d thought he’d seen a lot of plants the day before, now there was a positive multitude.

Around midmorning, they paused at a stream; while Duncan refilled their shared water skin, Drust contemplated a nearby tree—a tall, crooked thing whose green was made up of a profusion of small needles. “Is it just me,” he said, “or are the trees getting bigger?”

“No, it’s not just you,” Duncan assured him, capping the water skin and getting to his feet. “Trees need air to live, just like we do, and it’s thinner up in the mountains. The lower we travel, the larger they’ll get. There are some truly enormous trees in the Korcari Wilds, south of Ostagar, where we are headed.”

Drust looked at the Warden, then back at the tree. It was already the largest plant he had ever seen; he was hard-pressed to picture one getting even bigger—let alone whatever Duncan might be characterizing as “truly enormous.” On the other hand, he had had so many shocks, surprises, and new experiences in the last twenty-four hours that he was starting to get a little numb to them. He muttered, “As if these things weren’t big enough already,” and was gratified to hear Duncan laugh in response.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that sentiment, I admit,” he said. He tucked the water skin back into his bag, and they started down the road again.

Drust considered him curiously. “You’ve been to Orzammar many times, then?”

Duncan nodded. “Whenever the Wardens are actively recruiting I make sure to go back. The dwarves are more familiar with the darkspawn than the other races, and better understand what our life demands.” He chuckled. “I often think that’s why we get so few dwarven recruits.”

Drust snorted. “Probably,” he said. Even the casteless—barred by law from the Proving grounds and the noble halls—saw the toll the darkspawn campaigns took on the warrior caste. On the other hand, faced with a choice between going to the Wardens or starving… “Go to Dust Town next time,” he said. “Don’t stay up in the Diamond Quarter with the elite. We may not have experience against the darkspawn, but we don’t have any glory to give up by going with you.” Duncan turned a wondering gaze on him, and Drust felt compelled to add, “Besides, dusters are better fighters anyway.”

The Warden’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Better than the warriors who train from birth?”

Drust couldn’t hold back a mocking chuckle. “You think we don’t train from birth? _Everyone_ in Dust Town knows how to fight. My sister, Rica—you saw her. She knows how to fight,” he said. “Not cleanly or well, but she can defend herself. She has to, or she’d be dead.” He shrugged. “You saw me at the Proving—do you think anyone ever gave me duelling lessons? We may not know the fancy forms, but we’re brutal and we fight dirty. Who would you rather have on your side in a war?”

Duncan was silent for a moment, then nodded in consideration. “You make a valid point, my friend. Very well. Next time I make my way back to Orzammar, I’ll stop in Dust Town.” He flashed a brief smile. “I admit that you yourself are a compelling argument all on your own.”

“I’d have won that Proving if they’d let me keep going,” Drust said.

“Of that I have no doubt.”

Drust grinned at him, then sobered abruptly. It had struck him suddenly how much his life had changed because he had decided to put on Everd’s armour. If the warrior hadn’t been drunk, would Drust have been here with Duncan now? No, certainly not. Everd would have won against Mainar, Beraht would have collected on his bets, and Drust would have gone back to work with Leske, left only with the hope that Rica would produce a male heir and have their family elevated. But instead he was in exile—and _free_. And as a Grey Warden, he would never have to accept the strictures of caste again—on himself or on anyone else.

Would Duncan have even found a recruit to bring back if Drust hadn’t walked into the arena? He doubted it somehow.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be there,” he said.

The Warden chuckled. “That much was made quite clear.”

“No, I mean _I_ wasn’t,” Drust said. “I hadn’t planned to be. I was there to rig a bet. We were just supposed to make sure Everd won his match.”

Duncan didn’t say anything, just fixed him with a questioning look; Drust could tell he wanted the context for that, but also didn’t want to pry. He took a deep breath. “I worked for the Carta. For Beraht. There aren’t many other options for us dusters,” he said. “Dwarven law makes it illegal for us to do any work that anyone legitimate could do instead.”

“That’s cruel,” Duncan said.

Drust shrugged, awkwardly avoiding his eyes. “Caste is cruel,” he said. “Anyway, Beraht had some bets riding on Everd’s match against Mainar, and he sent me and Leske in to make sure he won. We were supposed to slip a drug into Mainar’s water, just a bit of something to take his edge off. But then we found Everd, and he was so drunk he couldn’t move.” He looked down. “Beraht wouldn’t accept excuses, even reasonable ones, and I was already on loose sand with him. If he’d lost his bet, he could have had my family killed—my sister. It was Leske who pointed out that we were the same size.”

He risked a glance up; the Warden’s gaze was focused on him, something soft and unfamiliar in his eyes, and once again he had to look away. “That was it, I’m afraid,” he said. “No grand gesture of defiance, nothing _important_. I was just trying to win Everd’s fight. If it had gone according to plan no one would even have known I was there.” He gave a wry chuckle. “How’s that for inspiring my troops?”

There was a pause where Duncan didn’t speak, and for a brief, horrible moment Drust wondered if he had just gotten himself disinvited from recruitment. But then he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, and Duncan said, “I didn’t want to join the Grey Wardens at first. I killed a man by accident, and with his dying breath he thanked me. I found out after I was arrested that he’d been a Warden himself.” Drust looked up, and Duncan gave him a grim smile. “What kind of life could the Wardens lead, if a man would thank me for killing him? When their Commander offered to recruit me, I refused. So she came to my execution and conscripted me anyway.”

His execution. Drust received that news with a thrill of both kinship and astonishment. Duncan, too, had been bound for a prisoner’s death—a death he had chosen to take over the same duty they were both bound to now.

His mouth was dry, and it was a moment before he could speak. “Do you wish she hadn’t?” Drust said.

“Now? Not at all. I’ve been able to do much good and save many people—including some whose loss could have destroyed Ferelden,” he said. “Our job is not an easy one, but it’s necessary—and, I think, worthwhile. But at the time…” His smile turned self-deprecating. “The other Wardens hated me, with good reason. I tried to run away more than once. And I kept up my bad habits from my life before the Wardens. I was a thief,” he explained, grinning at Drust’s briefly astounded expression. “You’re not the only one with a past, my friend. But whatever we did, whoever we were, it’s behind us now. All we can do is move forward.”

He lifted his gauntlet from Drust’s shoulder, and suddenly Drust realized just how long it had lingered there, and how dearly he missed its warmth even though the leather of his armour. His eyes drifted to Duncan’s hands, then up his arms and chest to his face. He wondered how much worthier he might feel under the Warden’s touch—whether he could even come to imagine himself as inspiring—and felt consumed with the hunger to find out.

But Duncan didn’t seem to notice. “There’s a certain nobility in doing the best you can with the hand you’ve been dealt,” he continued. “You kept yourself and your family alive in the only way you could in an unjust society, and whatever your methods, that, at least, was admirable.” He smiled and added, “And regardless of your reasons, the amount of bravery it took to do something so unthinkably taboo, as you did, is not to be underestimated. You are worthy of a place in the Grey Wardens, whatever your history.”

Stone below, the way he said that, Drust could almost have believed him.

“I’m grateful,” he began, then cleared his throat. “I’m grateful for your endorsement. I just hope I can live up to it.”

Duncan only smiled understandingly in response, and they carried on down the road in silence.

They broke for lunch on the side of the road around what the Warden claimed was midday—not that Drust could tell with the cloud cover—and ate sliced cheese and cured ham on day-old bread. While Duncan was putting his supplies away, Drust got up to investigate some white and yellow plants protruding from the dirt. They were surprisingly delicate, wobbling back and forth on thin green stems, and he wrapped his fingers around one and snapped it off at the root.

“Is this a flower?” he said, turning to let Duncan see it.

The Warden looked up and nodded. “A daisy.”

Drust rotated the stem in his fingers, watching it spin back and forth. “I’d never seen one,” he said. “What are they for?”

“I don’t suppose they’re for anything,” Duncan said, slinging his pack back over his shoulder. “People grow them because they look pretty, though of course they also grow in the wild. They’re especially popular with children, or as gifts between lovers. Young women often weave them into coronets.”

Drust looked at the daisy in his hand in fascination. “Really? How does that work?”

“I never learned the trick to it, I’m afraid,” Duncan said with a smile. Drust glanced up at him, then back down at the flower. He shrugged, tucked it into the end of his braid, and fell back in step with the Warden.

They left the mountains behind by late afternoon, and Drust descended uneasily into the unfamiliar world of the lowlands. There were even more plants here, growing larger and in an increasing variety of colours, but that was only enough to hold his attention for a few moments at a time before his thoughts drifted inexorably back to the absence of the Stone. In the mountains at least she had been present and visible, even if he no longer walked within her embrace; here, she was simply absent. Not even the sheer omnipresence of the sky in this gradually flattening land was as unnerving as the feeling of his stone sense slipping away.

Duncan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Something the matter, my friend?”

Drust realized he was clenching his fists. He took a deep, shuddering breath and forced himself to relax—physically, if not emotionally. “I don’t know if you could really understand,” he said. “Do you know about our stone sense?”

“I’ve heard the term,” Duncan said, “but it has never been properly explained to me.”

Drust nodded. “I’ve always been told that humans and elves don’t share it,” he said. “It’s… complex. It connects us to the Stone—the living earth, the mother of our race. I could still… feel her, faintly, in the mountains.” His breath hitched, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. “I can’t feel her anymore.”

For a moment Duncan seemed to be at a loss, but he rallied impressively. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t pretend to know what that’s like, but you have my deepest sympathies. It’s difficult to know you cannot go home.”

“You know the worst part?” Drust said. “I don’t give a fig about Orzammar. But for Rica and Leske, the entire city can go hang. But the Stone…” He blotted the moisture from his eyes with the heel of his palm. “We inter our dead, you know. So we can go back to her in death. Surfacers can’t do that.”

Duncan’s face was solemn. “I didn’t realize what I would be taking you away from,” he said quietly.

Drust sighed. “It’s all right. The casteless are rejected by the Stone anyway,” he said, making no effort to keep the bitterness from his voice. “When we’re interred we become the gangue, the waste rock that has to be cut away. At least, that’s what everyone says. I don’t know if I believe it. My stone sense is—was as strong as anyone’s.”

The Warden’s eyes tightened at that, but his voice remained soft. “All the same, I am sorry,” he said. “It’s a hard thing to lose.”

Drust wrapped his arms around himself, looking down. “Let’s just keep going,” he said.

By the time they stopped to make camp the clouds had lifted in the west and the landscape was washed in the golden light of sunset. It drew Drust’s eyes again and again as he dug a fire pit and collected kindling, and he watched the sun until it dipped behind the mountains, highlighting them with tongues of fire. The sky was glorious in pink and orange, darkening to a dusty purple where it met the clouds above, and the world was lit with colours he had never known existed.

“I always thought the sky was blue,” he said when Duncan had finished setting up the tent and sat down next to him. The Warden chuckled.

“That’s what everyone teaches, but you’ll find it changes with the weather, or,” he nodded towards the mountains, “the time of day. We’re fortunate the clouds have lifted in the west—you have a lot of spectacular sunsets to make up for, my friend.”

“Thirty-four years of them,” Drust said.

“How gracious of the sky to get us started so promptly, then,” Duncan said with an impish smile. Drust laughed softly, but didn’t take his eyes off the gilded silhouettes of the mountains.

He fell asleep still unsure of whether he was mourning his lost home, or the years he had lost by clinging to it.

The weather stayed cloudy for the next several days, which Drust was fine with—he found the sky easier to deal with when it had a ceiling, even one so unfathomably high as the clouds. They skirted the edge of Lake Calenhad on their way south, then turned east, following the Imperial Highway. Drust rapidly gave up on trying to catalogue every new plant he saw; there were just too many of them, and he was coming to realize that most of them weren’t useful for anything—most, but not all. Some were good to eat, and as they travelled Duncan made sure to show him which berries were safe to pick and which unassuming green leaves were attached to edible roots. Drust collected them as they walked, and added fresh produce to their evening meals.

The Warden also shored up their diminishing food stores by hunting small game in the evenings. Drust did not assist him in this: he was still unaccustomed to moving silently through the underbrush, and so unfamiliar with the habits of surface animals that he would only have served to scare them off. Aside from the hunt itself, however, he was remarkably adept at preparing game, and took a certain pleasure in dressing and roasting the meat to perfection; after the third time unexpected seasonings had turned up in Duncan’s breakfast, he had handed off his bag of spices to Drust and allowed him to take over the cooking entirely.

After the fourth day Drust stopped constantly looking back over his shoulder for a glimpse of the mountains, and gradually he became accustomed to the sky. The plants, too, he started to grow accustomed to, and found himself increasingly awed and intrigued by them rather than stunned and perplexed. True to Duncan’s words, the trees got bigger as they descended further into the lowlands, and by the time they were on their way south again he was starting to see signs of their promised enormity. Much to his surprise, he found he liked them: a canopy of foliage overhead was oddly reminiscent of the caves he had grown up in, despite the rustling leaves and patches of light that shone through.

The morning that marked Drust’s one week anniversary of coming to the surface, he stepped out of the tent and found himself momentarily dizzy. The clouds had cleared up overnight and the sky—now missing the ceiling he had appreciated so much—shone a bright and unreal blue. The sun beamed down, bathing him in more light than he had ever experienced; brief afterimages swam in motes before his eyes.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s—oh.”

“Unexpected?” Duncan volunteered.

“Painful,” Drust said. The Warden laughed.

“Give it a moment, your eyes will adjust,” he said, removing their packs and bedrolls from the tent to start dismantling it. Drust squinted against the sunlight and dug out their food supplies.

He was seeing normally again by the time Duncan sat down next to him, and had nearly finished a serviceable breakfast. The Warden handed him a plate, and he passed back toasted cheese, leftover rabbit, and a handful of blueberries that remained from the day before. “We’re almost out,” he said, filling a second plate for himself. “There’s enough left for three, maybe four meals.”

“That’s fine,” Duncan said. He bit into the cheese. “We should arrive in Ostagar by late morning tomorrow.”

Drust looked up. “So this is it?”

“Our last full day on the road,” Duncan said, nodding. His mouth twitched. “How fortunate that it has dawned so bright and auspicious, wouldn’t you say?”

Drust threw a blueberry at him.

The day warmed as it wore on and by midmorning Drust was sweating under his armour. When they stopped for lunch, he took advantage of the small pond nearby to splash cool water on his face and arms. “Apparently the sun is good for something other than blinding me,” he said. He peered at his arm. “I think my skin is getting darker. Is it supposed to do that?”

“Be thankful you’re not naturally pale,” Duncan said. “Fair skin burns. I’m told it’s quite painful.”

Drust blinked. “Right. And just to clarify,” he said, “people live up here on purpose?”

“Do I make fun of your homeland?” Duncan said mildly, biting into a sausage.

“I don’t see why not,” Drust said. “Orzammar is terrible.”

The Warden laughed. “Very well, have it your way. I don’t know how anyone can breathe down there,” he said. “It’s frankly a wonder your system hasn’t shut down in shock since your ascent.”

Drust shrugged modestly. “What can I say? We dwarves are a hardy breed.”

He demonstrated by offering Duncan his hand, pulling him to his feet with no particular effort despite the difference in their heights. The Warden grinned at him, his eyes dancing with merriment, but he also seemed faintly impressed.

It was a good look on him. For a moment Drust forgot to breathe.

Then Duncan’s gaze fell to their hands and the spell was broken. Drust dropped his hand like he’d been scalded and stepped away. “Shall we?”

Perhaps Drust only imagined the pause before the Warden spoke. “Certainly,” he said, bending to retrieve his pack.

Drust hefted his own bag, settling it on his shoulders, and fell in step with Duncan as they started down the road again. “So what is Ostagar, anyway?” he said, trying to distract himself from the memory of the Warden’s solid grip. “A city?”

“A ruin, actually,” Duncan said. “It was once a fortress of the Tevinter Imperium, but it’s been abandoned since the First Blight. Some of the walls still stand, though, and the Tower of Ishal to the east. It’s a strong defensive position.” His mouth set itself into a grim line. “Ferelden’s Grey Wardens are massed there along with King Cailan’s armies, fighting off the darkspawn.”

“A Blight?” Drust said, startled.

He definitely didn’t imagine the hesitation that time. “It is… still uncertain,” Duncan said. “The darkspawn have been active, it’s true, but we’ve had no sign of an archdemon. It could yet be nothing.”

 _But you suspect it, don’t you?_ Drust thought. He exhaled slowly. Ancestors. A Blight. It had been centuries since the last one. He hadn’t expected to see one in his lifetime—let alone as a Warden himself. No wonder Duncan had wanted recruits, if he believed a Blight was coming.

The day remained bright and clear, the brilliant blue of the sky gradually giving way to a darker shade and then fading evenly into yellow and orange as the sun approached the horizon. They stopped to camp near a slow-moving stream, and Drust set a handful of wild rice to cook while he fished with a hand line and a hook that had been beaten from an old nail. When he returned with two small river trout the tent was set up and Duncan was relaxing by the fire, idly stirring the rice.

“I added a pinch of saffron,” he said. “I hope that’s all right.”

“Put in some cinnamon and mustard seed,” Drust suggested, kneeling down and spitting the fish. “And pass me the sage.”

They ate the trout with the skin still on as the evening darkened around them, discarding the bones and offal in the fire pit and filling the camp with the pleasant aroma of cooked fat. Duncan scraped his bowl clean before setting it down and leaned back on his hands with a contented sigh. “A fitting meal to cap off our journey,” he said. “My compliments. Be careful who you reveal that particular skill to, or you’ll find yourself cooking for everyone in the Grey Wardens.”

Drust ducked his head, feeling a warm glow prickle across his cheeks. “I’ve just… never been able to afford spices like these before,” he said. He started collecting up the empty dishes to give himself something to do with his hands. “I’ve always wanted to use them, but I had to be sparing. This bag is like a treasure trove. I’ll be sorry to give it back.”

“It’s yours,” the Warden said. “I can always get more.”

“What?” Drust said, inadvertently dropping a bowl. “Are you sure? I can’t just—“

“Perhaps you misunderstood my intentions when I pressed it on you,” Duncan said. “You’re a talented cook, my friend, despite having had precious few opportunities to develop that skill. I want you to keep it.”

For a long moment Drust just stared at him, trying not to let himself be overcome. This wasn’t the first gift the Warden had given him—Foral Aeducan’s mace hung on his belt even now—but this was different. Undoubtedly the weapon was more valuable, but it was just a weapon, for all that it had had a famous bearer; but the little bag of spices embodied everything he had never been able to have in his life—everything that Duncan was now handing him, and acting like Drust was the one doing him the honours by accepting.

And how could he do anything but accept?

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“It was nothing, my friend,” Duncan said, but his smile told a different story. He knew, and he understood.

By the Stone, he was so beautiful and noble and _good_ that Drust could barely breathe. He was glowing with it. Duncan was going to blind him as surely as the sun.

He grabbed the fallen bowl and fled to the stream to compose himself.

The physical effort of scrubbing their dishes helped to settle his mind and he returned to camp with clean bowls, a pot full of water, and as much dignity as he could muster. Night had descended in earnest, and Duncan had tidied up their packs in his absence. Drust passed him the dishes to put away and poured the water out on the fire, kicking dirt over it to smother the coals. A great billow of smoke went up, and he followed it with his eyes—and then the cloud dissipated and the night sky revealed itself, and the world fell out from under him.

“Oh, _ancestors_ ,” he breathed, entranced. “What is that?”

Duncan looked up at him, then followed his gaze. “The stars,” he said, stowing the packs in the tent and getting to his feet. “Suns, like our own, lighting the skies of distant worlds. They’re too dim to be seen during the day, and the clouds have been blocking them at night for the past week.” He came over to stand beside Drust, looking up with a smile on his face. “What do you think?”

“They’re like jewels on the ceiling of the heavens,” Drust said. He sat down, tipping his head back as far as he could. The stars spun above him and for a moment he felt lightheaded, as he hadn’t since his first day spent under open air. “I think I understand now why some people feel they might fall off the earth.”

There was a rustle of fabric and the Warden took a seat next to him, hip and shoulder pressing lightly against Drust’s. “They have names, you know—some of them, at any rate. People have been making pictures out of the brightest ones for thousands of years,” he said.

For a moment Drust was distracted from Duncan’s overwhelming nearness. “Really?” he said. “How does that work?”

He immediately regretted his question when the Warden leaned in, aligning his perspective as closely as possible with Drust’s. “We connect lines between the stars,” he said, pointing up at a formation of six. “This one is the Sword of Mercy—the one at the top is the pommel, just there, then the hilt—” he traced a line of four, crossing the sky horizontally— “and then the tip of the blade, down at the bottom.”

Drust couldn’t focus on the stars well enough to figure out which ones the Warden was pointing at. Duncan’s right arm was against his back, his head resting on Drust’s left shoulder and his leg pressing the length of Drust’s from hip to knee. He smelled of the road—dust and dirt, sweat, leather and iron, the faint spice of their dinner, and beneath it all, the warm, savoury scent of his skin. Drust swallowed.

He didn’t want the Warden to move away.

“Are there others?” he said.

Duncan shifted. “There’s the Voyager,” he said, sketching out a rough box above an inverted triangle. “The sail, there—the mast—and the boat below it. And on the other horizon—” here he turned to point to the west, adjusting Drust’s shoulders with his hand— “the High Dragon.” He outlined a complicated shape, naming off its body parts. “One wing, the head, two horns, the other wing—and down the body to the tail.” He glanced at Drust’s face, and Drust nodded, trying to pretend he was absorbing any of it. “There are others, but some are behind the trees, and in any case they’re not all visible all the time. Stars move with the seasons.”

Drust made a noise that was half laughter and half clearing his throat. “I’m starting to think everything does.”

Duncan laughed. “You’re not far off the mark, my friend,” he said. “It’s the movement that makes the seasons.”

Drust kept his gaze on the sky, his eyes picking out shapes and patterns of his own making. The Warden hadn’t moved away, and he was afraid he’d break the spell if he so much as breathed too hard.

“The surface is so much more changeable than the thaigs,” he said instead.

“Is that really such a bad thing?” Duncan said.

Something in his voice prompted Drust to turn and look at him. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see the Warden clearly by the light of the stars. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said softly, studying Duncan’s face.

For just a moment, there was a flicker of pure, poignant longing in Duncan’s eyes; if Drust hadn’t been so near him, or watching him so closely, he would have missed it. _And how many times_ , he wondered suddenly, _have I missed it already, because I was too busy trying not to let him see it on me?_

“Duncan—” he said, and then he was leaning forward to catch the Warden’s lips.

Duncan made a low sound in his throat as his arms came around Drust’s shoulders. Drust let his hands settle on the Warden’s waist, feeling the catch of his callouses on leather armour, the press of Duncan’s hip as he shifted towards him, the tickle of unfamiliar facial hair on his cheeks. Duncan’s lips were lush and warm against his, just begging for the feel of his teeth, and Drust was happy to oblige. The noise the Warden made in response sent a shock of heat curling through his belly.

He broke away, breathing hard. Duncan looked as wild as he felt, cheeks flushed and pupils blown. Drust pressed his mouth hungrily to the Warden’s neck, dragging at the skin with his teeth as though he could consume the man whole. Duncan gasped and wound his hand into the hair at the base of Drust’s braid, tugging Drust to him.

“Oh, Maker,” he groaned. “I’ve been waiting for you to do this since the first night I slept beside you.”

Drust sucked a mark onto Duncan’s neck, drawing a brief whine from his throat. He grinned. “I’ve got you beat,” he said against the Warden’s collar. “I only went to talk to you on the Proving ground because I’d have liked to take you to bed.”

Duncan’s hand tightened convulsively on his hair. “Maker,” he repeated. “Why didn’t we do this before?”

“I didn’t know you were—”

“Interested in men?” Duncan interrupted, laughing.

“Interested in _me_ ,” Drust corrected, hands tugging restlessly at the Warden’s belt. “Do you have any idea what—you’re—it’s like you’re too perfect to be real,” he said. Duncan made a brief sound of protest, but Drust hushed him, trailing his lips up the side of his neck to nip at the skin below his ear. “Look at it through my eyes. You stood up for me—a brand—in front of the noble caste. You rescued me from execution. You haven’t just saved my life, you _gave_ me one. How could I hold a candle to you? You shine with your own light.”

Duncan’s face was a mixture of embarrassed and flattered, but Drust silenced him with his lips before he could speak. The Warden buckled against him and Drust braced his weight, hands sliding around his waist to press against his back, teeth tugging at his lips, tongue flicking out to beg entrance to his mouth. By the time he pulled away Duncan was panting, and Drust couldn’t stop himself from flashing a small, self-satisfied smile.

“A week ago I just wanted to be close to you,” he said. “But now—ancestors save me, all I want to do is take you apart.”

Duncan sucked in a shaky breath. “The tent,” he said. “Let’s go—to the tent—”

The Warden untangled his hands from Drust’s hair and Drust released him, allowing him to pull him to his feet. Duncan had already stripped off the outer layers of his armour by the time they made it into the tent, and he dropped them by the entrance, heedless of their organization. Drust kicked off his boots and unbuckled his own armour, yanking it over his head, then joined the Warden on his bedroll to help him with the last of his clips. Together they slid the breastplate from his shoulders and pushed it aside, and Drust shoved him down onto the bed, straddling his hips and capturing his mouth with a desperate urgency.

He trailed his hands over Duncan’s chest as they kissed, unfastening the buttons on his tunic and sliding his hands inside. The Warden’s hips arched towards him as Drust’s hands danced across his waistband, and Drust pulled off his lips with a sharp tug, grinding down against him. Duncan let out a moan and dug his fingers into Drust’s thighs, and Drust rocked into his touch, both teasing and demanding.

“You’re so gorgeous like this,” he said, bending to nip kisses down the Warden’s chest. “For me,” he added, a little thrill shooting through him as he spoke.

“Maker’s breath,” Duncan said, breathing hard. “Oh, my friend, it’s been too long.”

Drust stopped. “No,” he growled, getting the Warden’s attention with a punishing bite to his ribs. “You call me by my name. When I make you moan out loud I want it to be my _name_ on your lips.”

He didn’t miss the way all the air suddenly left Duncan’s body. He lifted his head, raising his eyebrows, and waited. The Warden let out a whine, quickly cut off, and wet his lips. “Drust,” he whispered.

“Better,” Drust said, letting the smugness he felt creep into his voice. Duncan made a choked noise in response, and Drust chuckled, studying him in the darkness. “Well, this is interesting,” he said. “Am I reading this right? The Commander of the Grey Wardens likes to be told what to do?”

Duncan moaned. “Maker, Drust, _please_ ,” he said.

“Oh, I like that,” Drust said with a wicked grin. He sat back, dragging his hands down Duncan’s stomach, digging his thumbs into his hipbones and pulling another needy sound from his lips. “Go on, beg some more—let me hear how much you want me.”

“Blessed Andraste,” Duncan said. His voice was wrecked. “Please, just—touch me, Drust, let me have your hands—just let me have you, _please_ —”

“Such a clever tongue,” Drust purred, pulling Duncan’s tunic apart and sliding his pants off his hips with blunt fingers. He shifted back and bent to press a kiss onto the Warden’s stomach just above his smallclothes, and felt Duncan’s breath hitch against his lips. Drust smirked. “Where did you learn to beg like that?”

Duncan laughed, but his voice sounded a bit strangled. “Do you think you’re the first man to boss me around in bed?” he said.

“Not the first,” Drust said, “but I bet I can be the best.”

Whatever reply the Warden might have made was silenced when Drust pushed his legs apart and mouthed at his cock through the fabric of his smalls. Duncan inhaled a shuddery gasp, fingers digging into the fabric of his bedroll, and Drust worked his way along his length, groaning in his throat, aching for want of a proper taste.

He pulled away once Duncan swelled to hardness; the Warden practically whimpered, but Drust just laughed, stilling him with a caress to his outer thigh, and ran his hands along his legs to pull his pants the rest of the way down. Eager now, Duncan yanked off his tunic with shaking fingers, clutching at the blankets as Drust undid his smalls and slid them off with a deliberate, agonizing slowness. Only when the Warden was completely naked did Drust turn his full attention to his cock, and felt his own tightening at the sight that was laid out before him.

He wet his lips, fighting to keep his voice casual. “You know, I’ve never fucked a human before,” he said.

Duncan gave a breathy chuckle. “And how do we measure up?”

Drust circled his hand around Duncan’s length, grinning at the Warden’s sharp inhalation. “A bit longer than I’m used to,” he said. He started stroking lazily, deftly pressing his thumb against the tip. “But dwarves are thicker.”

Duncan made a sound that might have liked to be a laugh if it hadn’t been otherwise occupied as a moan. “Somehow that does not surprise me.”

“Smartass,” Drust said. “Do you want me to stop?” He slowed his hand, and Duncan’s breath hitched again.

“No,” he said. “Maker, no—please, Drust—”

Despite the heat that shot through his groin, Drust still had enough self control to chuckle. He tightened his grip, squeezing lightly, and bent his head to lick a broad stroke up the underside of Duncan’s cock. “Come on, now,” he said. “Ask nicely if you want something.”

Duncan whined in his throat, lifting an unsteady hand to Drust’s face. “Please,” he whispered. “Drust, please—I want you so badly, I want your mouth on me—you said you wanted to take me apart, so take me apart—”

Drust laughed again, low in his throat, and swallowed him down.

The Warden let out a surprised shout, hips bucking as he clutched desperately at Drust’s hair. Drust didn’t resist him, answering Duncan’s roughness with a hard grip of his own, his fingers tightening on the Warden’s hips. Despite the size, he didn’t find it difficult to get his mouth around Duncan’s cock—it was an adjustment, but a minor one, and desire went a long way towards easing it. The enthusiasm with which the Warden responded certainly didn’t hurt either.

He dragged his lips up Duncan’s length, wrapping his tongue around the tip and sucking firmly, moaning at getting the taste he had so badly wanted. Duncan responded in kind, his nails digging into Drust’s scalp as he pressed him back down; Drust went willingly, burying his face in the dark hair that curled at the base of the Warden’s cock, losing himself for long moments in the feeling of Duncan in his mouth.

“Blessed Andraste,” Duncan whispered. “Fuck—Drust—I’m going to come—”

The sound when Drust pulled off of him was positively obscene, and Duncan choked on a whimper, his hips jolting. Drust held him still with one hand and gazed down at the Warden with dark eyes. He smirked. “Not yet, you’re not,” he said, and started unbuttoning his shirt.

Duncan forced himself upright with a quiet moan, tugging at the garment with restless hands, letting his fingers drag down Drust’s stomach to untuck it from his waistband. Drust threw it off, canting his hips into the Warden’s touch, and nearly buckled when Duncan palmed him through his breeches. Together they made short work of his remaining clothing and tumbled naked back down onto the bedroll, Drust grinding down against the Warden, Duncan breathless and nearly clawing at Drust’s shoulders.

Drust slipped his hand down between them, first getting a grip on Duncan, then circling around himself as well. The Warden was still wet with saliva and they were both leaking precum, and it was easy to press his thumb against the tip of his cock and spread that slickness around until they slid smoothly against each other. Drust rocked his hips down, and Duncan _keened_.

“Stone below,” Drust groaned, and began thrusting into his hand.

Duncan gasped and arched up into him, hips jerking as his hands raked over Drust’s back. “Oh—oh, Maker—please don’t stop, please—”

“No,” Drust growled, “not until I feel you fall apart.”

It didn’t take long. Drust had already worked him nearly to the edge, and it was only a few minutes more before he felt Duncan stiffen beneath him, all the breath freezing in his lungs as his hips stuttered and his mouth opened in a silent shout. Drust rode it out with him, his hand working until the Warden’s cock had spilled its last, and then he braced himself, rutting on him until Duncan’s stomach was striped with his release as well. The Warden’s chest was heaving as Drust eased off of him, and when Drust bent to lick him clean he whimpered, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Maker,” he whispered, and Drust bit back a self-satisfied smile.

He collapsed down heavily next to Duncan, tucking his head in against his shoulder and casually throwing one leg over his hip. Gradually the Warden’s breathing slowed; Drust’s came to match it, and he settled comfortably into the warmth of Duncan’s embrace. At last Duncan sighed contentedly, bringing his hand up to cover Drust’s and letting his temple rest against Drust’s crown.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “That was… quite honestly incredible.”

Drust stirred, his laughter a low rumble in his throat. “It was hardly a selfless gesture on my part.”

“Well,” the Warden said, and Drust could hear him smiling, “no, I suppose not.”

Drust hummed softly, closing his eyes. “Had it really been that long for you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Duncan said wryly. “The life of the Grey Wardens does not leave much time for romantic entanglements.”

Drust snorted a laugh. “Sure, but I’m not talking about romance. Just sex.” He stretched and resettled, turning his face into Duncan’s neck. “You don’t sleep with any of your Wardens?”

Duncan hesitated, then said, “They’re my subordinates. It would be irresponsible of me to take advantage.”

“That doesn’t actually answer my question.”

For a long moment the Warden made no reply, and then Drust broke the silence with a soft laugh, kissing the column of Duncan’s throat. “All right, I won’t pry,” he said. “I’m just wondering, given my own position and all.”

Duncan said nothing, and Drust waited, allowing him to turn it over in his mind. At last the Warden sighed and said, “I suppose we’ll work it out. I hardly feel I took advantage of you. And I won’t pretend I wouldn’t like to do this again.”

“I’d like that,” Drust said. “You’re a beautiful man, Duncan.”

Duncan laughed softly, but didn’t deny it. “As are you.”

Drust chuckled. “So I’ve been told.”

The tent was quiet for a minute, then Duncan asked, “Have you had many lovers?”

Drust shrugged. “Some,” he said. “Nothing serious, but there were a few men I stayed with when I wanted some company.” Belatedly it occurred to him to wonder what they’d think of his disappearance, but then he realized it probably wouldn’t matter. They had all been casteless, like him, and were familiar with how precarious life could be in Dust Town—that was part of the reason he had always been careful not to get too close. A duster could no more afford romantic entanglements than a Warden could.

“Will you miss them?” Duncan said.

“To be honest, I barely knew them,” Drust said. “Except for Leske, but he was my friend. We were barely lovers, anyway—I think he just wanted someone he trusted to experiment with.” He shrugged again. “He was fine, as a bedmate, but he decided he preferred women.”

“It doesn’t seem to have damaged your friendship at all.”

“No,” Drust said. He had always been glad of that. “Whatever else we may have been, we were partners. I was sorry to have to leave him.”

Duncan squeezed his hand lightly. “I hope you’ll find a friendship like that again.”

Drust smiled into the Warden’s collar. “You know,” he said, “somehow, I feel I will.”

He felt Duncan’s hand stroking his hair as he drifted off to sleep.

They broke camp the next morning in companionable silence, the soft touches between them a reminder of what had passed during the night. Drust made breakfast with the last of Duncan’s oats, then carefully stowed the bag of spices in his pack, still scarcely able to believe it was his. By the time the sun was visible above the trees, they were on the road again—and by Duncan’s reckoning, only three hours from their destination.

It was late morning when the ruin of Ostagar came into view around a bend in the road. Drust paused to consider it, his eyes catching on the curved buttresses and swooping lines of the unfamiliar architecture, bright in the light of the rising day. It was beautiful, in its broken way, and as unlike his home as anything could be. If the gates of Orzammar had represented the end of his old life, this would be the beginning of his new one.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose this is it.”

Duncan reached out to touch his shoulder, but said nothing. Drust caught his hand briefly, flashing him a smile, and together they made their way up the road to the fortress.

They were hailed at the gate by a blond human in golden armour, accompanied by two guards. “Ho there, Duncan!” he called, waving. Duncan shaded his eyes to get a proper look at the newcomer, then exclaimed in surprise and hurried forward to meet him.

“King Cailan! I didn’t expect—”

“A royal welcome?” Cailan said, smiling as he came forward to clasp the Warden’s arm in greeting. “I was beginning to worry you’d miss all the fun!”

Drust caught up with Duncan and the Warden met his eyes for a brief second, smiling wryly. “Not if I could help it, your Majesty.”

“Then I’ll have the mighty Duncan in battle at my side after all! Glorious!” the king said, clapping Duncan on the shoulder.

Drust’s eyebrows were by this point ascending into his hairline, but he rapidly pulled himself under control when Cailan turned his attention on him. “The other Wardens told me you’d sent word of a promising recruit,” the king said. “I take it this is he?”

“Allow me to introduce you, your Majesty,” Duncan began, but the king interrupted him with a dismissive flap of his hand.

“There’s no need to be so formal, Duncan—we’ll be shedding blood together, after all,” Cailan said. He grinned at Drust. “Ho there, friend! Might I know your name?”

Cailan’s attitude was so far from what he had expected from a king that it was putting Drust off balance, but despite that he found himself smiling cautiously back. He could put aside his feelings about nobles for one conversation. Perhaps nobility meant something different on the surface. “I am Drust Brosca, your Majesty.”

“Pleased to meet you!” the king said, clasping Drust’s arm as he had Duncan’s. “The Grey Wardens are desperate to bolster their numbers, and I, for one, am glad to help them. It’s good to see one of the honourable stout folk outside Orzammar.”

It took everything Drust had not to burst into incredulous laughter, especially when he made the mistake of catching Duncan’s eye and saw the combined look of irritation and disbelief there. He inhaled sharply through his nose, mastering the twitching of his lips, and said the first thing that came to mind: “Honourable? You must not have met many members of the noble caste.”

Behind the king, Duncan made a choked noise into his hand, and Drust had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again.

But Cailan didn’t seem to notice. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that,” he said jovially. “You must regale me with it sometime. After we defeat the Blight, of course. I doubt Loghain will give me a moment’s rest until then.”

Drust’s eyes darted to Duncan, surprised to hear Cailan reference a Blight so casually. The Warden’s momentary good humour had vanished like it never was, and he looked tense. Uneasily, Drust returned his attention to the king, who was carrying on seemingly oblivious to the silent communication going on around him.

“You know, I’ve been to Orzammar,” he said. His tone had turned conversational. “King Endrin invited my father to a Grand Proving, long ago. How does Endrin fare these days?”

Suddenly fed up with this cocksure noble, Drust allowed him mouth a dry twist. “Personally, I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd,” he said.

That seemed to unbalance Cailan for a moment, but he recovered quickly. “Fair enough, I suppose. Well, allow me to be the first to welcome you to Ostagar. The Wardens will benefit greatly with you in their ranks.”

 _Platitudes_ , Drust thought. _He’s never seen me fight_. But all he said was, “You’re too kind, your Majesty.”

The king nodded in acknowledgement—barely—and forged on. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I should return to my tent. Loghain waits eagerly to bore me with his strategies.”

“I stopped in at Redcliffe on my way north,” Duncan interjected. “Your uncle sends his greetings and reminds you that his forces could be here in less than a week.”

But rather than greeting this news with relief, Cailan only laughed. “Ha! Eamon just wants in on the glory,” he said fondly. “We’ve won three battles against these monsters and tomorrow should be no different.”

“You sound very confident of that,” Drust said, careful to keep his voice neutral.

Cailan grinned at his attempt at diplomacy. “Overconfident, some would say. Right, Duncan?”

Duncan straightened up slightly. “Your Majesty, I’m not certain the Blight can be ended quite as… quickly as you might wish,” he said.

“I’m not even sure this is a true Blight,” the king said. He threw his hands up in the air. “There are plenty of darkspawn on the field, but alas, still no sign of an archdemon.”

There was a grim slant to Duncan’s mouth, but his voice remained light. “Disappointed, your Majesty?”

“I’d hoped for a war like in the tales!” Cailan said, and for a moment Drust could hear how he must have sounded as a child. “A king riding with the fabled Grey Wardens against a tainted god! But I suppose this will have to do.”

Drust couldn’t tell if his blood was running hot or cold. If there was one thing he knew, it was that it was never like the tales. He was suddenly struck with a terrible sense of dread. Something was going to go wrong. Glancing sideways at Duncan, he knew the Warden was thinking the same thing.

But Cailan didn’t notice the effect his words had had on them. “Now I must go, before Loghain sends out a search party,” he said. “Farewell, Grey Wardens!” He waved carelessly, then turned to make his way back into the fort. His guards fell in step behind him, and he strode away, no more worried than a child playing at Paragon in the town square.

“What the king said is true,” Duncan said cautiously as Cailan and his men moved out of sight. “They’ve won several battles against the darkspawn here.”

“Yet you don’t sound very reassured,” Drust said quietly.

Duncan made a noncommittal noise and waved him ahead, and they made their entry into Ostagar.

Drust tried to put his concerns out of his mind while the Warden instructed him on the Joining: Cailan’s attitude worried him in ways he couldn’t properly articulate, but as Duncan’s explanation soon made clear, he had more immediate problems than tomorrow’s battle. When the Warden released him he made his way into camp, exploring the fort and familiarizing himself with its ways. It was jarring to be among people again, even more so to have to look up to everyone he spoke with—and it was downright startling the way they openly met his eyes and answered him with respect. He had to remind himself that no one here knew what his brand meant, that those who did likely didn’t care—and that even aside from that, his status as a Warden recruit afforded him honour he had never thought to achieve. Leaving Orzammar had been enough to drive home that his life was irrevocably changed, but it was only now that he was truly seeing what that meant.

He found Alistair arguing with a mage—the first of many times he would witness the former Templar practicing his sarcasm on someone—and followed him back to their meeting with Duncan. In the Wilds, he and the other recruits encountered their first darkspawn. It felt deeply wrong, in a way that went beyond the mere disgust of seeing a living form so corrupted, and to master his revulsion Drust was forced to draw on the brutal efficiency he had learned in the Carta. If Ser Jory and Daveth were slightly wary of him after that, well, he could hardly blame them; Alistair, to his credit, behaved no differently, and made no mention of the incident to Duncan when they finally returned to camp after their strange detour with Morrigan and her mother. By the time they began the Joining, the other recruits had better things to worry about than whether one of their number was a bit too good at killing.

And by the time it was done, it didn’t matter what they thought anymore, because they were both dead.

Drust awoke to both Duncan and Alistair leaning over him, the horrors of the Joining preying on his mind and other, stranger horrors that he couldn’t comprehend pressed into the darkness behind his eyelids. Dreams, Alistair called them, but Drust had never known what “dreaming” meant—only that dwarves didn’t do it, and so bred no mages. The visions he had seen unsettled him, and his body ached from the ritual he had undergone, but he had no time to dwell on his troubles: soon the darkspawn would attack, and he had a council of war to attend.

At the meeting, Cailan was just as blasé as ever, and Loghain was dismissive and abrupt, refusing resources that came from any source outside his control. Drust didn’t understand the politics that underpinned the Orlesian argument, but he bristled at the way the teyrn spoke to Duncan, a vague unease picking quietly at the back of his mind. Loghain was as certain in his own way as the king, but what that certainty spelled, Drust couldn’t say. In the end he agreed to light the tower beacon with Alistair: no matter how the battle went, it was out of his hands.

He thought about that often, later—wondered if he’d just been taking the path of least resistance; wondered if it would have actually made a difference if he’d spoken up; wondered if he’d really even suspected anything or if he was just projecting, now that he knew what Loghain’s plans had been. The worst part was that he’d never know. He tried to cut off that line of thinking whenever it came up. He had done his best, and done what Duncan had thought best. Some things really were beyond their control.

His first sign that his premonition had been correct came when he and Alistair met darkspawn on the route to the Tower of Ishal. He fought down the rising panic within as they fought their way into the tower, and allowed himself to breathe easy again only once the ogre at its peak had fallen and the beacon was lit. It was impossible to make out details from this height, but he could see the shape of the fighting as he looked down over the battlements. There was the bulk of the darkspawn horde, still streaming in; there was the small force of Grey Wardens, Cailan’s golden armour and Duncan’s graceful bearing just visible in the thick of the mêlée; there was Loghain’s army waiting in reserve, stirring now with movement as the conflagration leapt on the tower. Drust sighed and shared a relieved glance with Alistair: they were going to be all right.

And then the army turned, and started marching from the field.

At first, Drust couldn’t parse what he was seeing. Where was Loghain taking them? They couldn’t be leaving—they had to bolster the Wardens. The king was counting on them; _Duncan_ was counting on them. Slowly understanding dawned on him: they had been betrayed.

“No!” he heard someone scream in anguish, and realized it was him.

He watched in helpless fury as the tide of battle turned. One by one the Wardens noticed their allies’ retreat—you could see it in how their movements changed, the way they tried to flee or fought all the harder. Drust felt Alistair buckle beside him when Duncan was thrown to the ground; wordlessly he gripped his arm, bracing him with a white-knuckled grasp as they stared in horror at the scene below them.

The glint of light in an ogre’s fist was Cailan’s gold armour; one wrenching snap and that light went out, the gold splattered with a sticky red. The clamour that rose when the king’s body was thrown aside was the dismayed collective outcry of Ferelden’s Grey Wardens. The sole purposeful movement, in the moments that followed, was Duncan rising to his feet and sprinting towards the ogre with sudden, grim intent. Drust knew in his gut what would happen before his head had caught up.

“No,” Alistair sobbed, “Duncan—Duncan!”

All across the field the Grey Wardens were fighting and dying, but the two pairs of eyes from the tower were fixed on only one figure. His aim was true; there was a flash of blades and the ogre fell, its final roar cut off with a choked gurgle. Duncan collapsed beside the carcass of his enemy, and despite the distance that separated them Drust could have sworn he turned to look their way. Then he stilled, and the darkspawn swarmed him over.

The rest of the battle was a hole in Drust’s memory. Later, when Morrigan told him how Flemeth had rescued them from the tower, he wondered if this wasn’t what it was like to dream after all. Everything felt so unreal. Had he really witnessed the death of the Wardens, or was this all just another terrible vision brought on by the Joining? He couldn’t help but think that he would wake to see Duncan leaning over him once more, with that soft fondness in his eyes that Drust had last seen on the road in to Ostagar.

As they spoke with Flemeth, as Morrigan prepared to leave with them, as Alistair, in his grief, deferred all authority to Drust, he was forced to accept that he would not be waking from this. He barely spoke for the next few days; it was all he could do not to lie down in despair and never bother getting up. Only Alistair’s clear reliance on him, and the heavy awareness of the duty they now shared, kept him going. He couldn’t even cry: the sheer cruelty of it—that Duncan had saved his life only to have his own ripped from him, before they could do more than lay a foundation between them—was too much to even process. It wasn’t until after they’d left Lothering, when he saw the stars come out in the skies over their camp, that the weight of what he’d lost came crashing down on him.

“Oh, ancestors,” he said, and the tears began to fall.

Drust sobbed himself to sleep that night, muffling the sounds into his bedroll, hands fisted tight in the blankets to keep from reaching out to a man who wasn’t there. It just wasn’t fair. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Duncan had said he would do—futures he had never got to have. He’d said he would recruit from Dust Town. He’d said he would buy more spices. He’d said they would work out a way to be Wardens and lovers both. He’d said all that, and instead he was gone, and Drust was left with nothing to anchor him.

Two weeks ago he’d been no more than a duster thug, and now he was leading the last of Ferelden’s Grey Wardens, and he had to stop the Blight with nothing but a handful of old papers and a ragtag team of near-strangers, and Duncan should have been there, and it just wasn’t _fair_.

“I never did figure out which stars you were trying to show me,” he whispered. It was the last thing he remembered before he finally fell asleep.

He didn’t exactly feel better when he awoke, but he did feel more like himself, and after nearly a week of silent numbness that was a welcome change. The task facing him hadn’t gotten any less daunting, but hadn’t he spent his whole life managing worse odds? He was a Grey Warden now, and he had a job to do. Duncan had seen something in him; whatever it was, it would have to be enough. And he wouldn’t be facing it alone: he couldn’t be entirely certain of the others yet, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Alistair, at least, would be with him to the ends of the earth.

For the first time since leaving Ostagar, Drust seasoned their morning porridge with the contents of his bag of spices. He ladled out two bowls and left the rest of his companions to serve themselves while he went in search of Alistair. His fellow Warden was sitting against a tree on the outskirts of the camp, shredding a leaf between his fingers as he stared into the stream. Drust sat down beside him without saying anything, and handed him one of the bowls.

They breakfasted in silence. Drust ate methodically, carefully scraping his bowl for the last remnants of porridge—he still hadn’t shaken the feeling that his access to food could disappear at any time, and doubted he would for years yet. Alistair only picked at his breakfast, but that was all right: it was more than he’d eaten yesterday. At last he set his bowl down next to Drust’s, tipping his head back against the tree and closing his eyes with a shaky sigh.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Drust said gently.

“You don’t have to do that,” Alistair said. His voice sounded worn. “I know you didn’t know him as long as I did.”

Suddenly Drust found himself blinking back tears. _I’d have liked to_ , he thought, but instead he said, “That doesn’t mean I don’t mourn his loss.”

Alistair sighed again, rubbing a hand over his face. “I… should have handled it better,” he said. “Duncan warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle. I shouldn’t have lost it, not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and… and everything.” His eyes were red-rimmed when he opened them. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re acting like I didn’t do the exact same thing,” Drust said. He squeezed Alistair’s arm lightly. “It’s all right. You don’t need to apologize. He obviously meant a lot to you.”

Alistair bit his lip. “Yeah. He did,” he said. “I’d… like to have a proper funeral for him. Maybe once this is all done, if we’re still alive. I don’t think—” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t think he had any family to speak of.”

“He had you,” Drust said softly. _He could have had me_.

Alistair blinked at him, looking for a moment like he was about to cry. When he found his voice, it sounded choked. “I—I suppose he did,” he said. “It probably sounds stupid, but part of me wishes I was with him. In the battle. I feel like I abandoned him.”

A rough laugh tore itself from Drust’s throat before he managed to clamp down on it. “No,” he said. “I understand completely.”

For a moment Alistair didn’t move, but then he turned to look at him properly, shifting just close enough to press their shoulders together. “Of course, we’d be dead then, wouldn’t we?” he said, trying for optimism. “It’s not like that would make him happier.”

“That’s what I keep reminding myself,” Drust said.

Alistair smiled weakly, and they sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind in the trees and watching the stream flow by. “I think he came from Highever, or so he said,” Alistair said suddenly. “Maybe I’ll go out there sometime, see about putting up something in his honour, I don’t know. It’s not as though I’ll be able to make him a proper funeral pyre.” He looked down at Drust. “The dwarves don’t practice cremation, do they?” he said. “How do your people honour your dead?”

Drust couldn’t help but remember the conversation he’d had with Duncan, and he looked down. “We entomb our dead within the Stone, beneath our thaigs,” he said. He left it at that. Time enough to discuss his past later, when the present wasn’t quite so raw.

“Really? How strange,” Alistair said musingly.

“Maybe so,” Drust agreed. He had never thought to question it, but it stood to reason that the humans would find his ways just as odd as he found theirs. But he was a surfacer now, and they had their own customs here. “I wouldn’t want to do that for Duncan. Our ways aren’t your ways. And I’m not even sure if they are my ways, anymore.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry about his body. I’m sure he’d understand.”

“You’re probably right,” Alistair said. “Thank you. Really. It was good to talk about it, at least a little.”

It was, Drust realized. Speaking was like bleeding the poison from a wound: it hurt, in the moment, but his head felt clearer. It would take time before the loss no longer stung, but in the meantime they had each other to lean on. That seemed right: they were the last of the realm’s Grey Wardens, after all, and they had to rely on each other. They would be brothers in this, as well.

“Maybe I’ll go to Highever with you, when you go,” he said.

“I’d like that,” Alistair said. “So would he, I think.” He smiled—really smiled, this time—and offered Drust his hand to pull him to his feet. “We should go back to camp. We probably need to get moving.”

Drust picked up their bowls, leaving the remains of Alistair’s breakfast for the animals and rinsing the dishes in the stream, then followed the younger Warden back towards the fire. The others had started breaking camp already: Morrigan was packing her bags, Leliana had collected the rest of the dishes, and Sten was dismantling Drust’s tent, his own already neatly packed with his gear. It was bizarrely domestic, and more than anything else it reminded Drust that life would go on. This wasn’t the first time it had taken an unexpected turn; somehow, he would find a way to be okay.

“Alistair?” he said.

Alistair turned back. “What is it?”

Drust took a deep breath. “Do you know much about the stars?”

The other Warden cocked his head, studying him curiously. “Some,” he said. “I learned a bit of history with the Templars, and navigation from the Wardens. Why?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Do you think you could teach me?”

If anything, Alistair just looked more puzzled, but he nodded. “Sure, if you like,” he said. “If the skies are clear tonight I can get you started with some constellations.”

“Thank you,” he said. In Drust’s memory, a bearded, dark-skinned Warden smiled a dazzlingly white-toothed smile, and he felt the corners of his mouth rising in response. “Now, come on,” he added, squeezing Alistair’s shoulder. “We’ve got a Blight to end.”

**Author's Note:**

> The constellations described in this fic are pulled from the Hinterlands Astrarium puzzles in Dragon Age: Inquisition. If I've gotten anything drastically wrong please feel free to let me know.


End file.
